Catfish and salt

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Thank you Joe. i found a couple of those articles in my search for answers but my biggest issue is the "how". I don't believe just dumping salt in can be good. There has to be a prhressive way to do it properly.
 
Thanks bro. Much appreciated. I do think we need a sticky for this kind of info on cats. I don't think a lot of people are aware of the side effects of over dosing salt with cats.


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I believe I covered this in one of my sticky threads in disease forum. Those sticky threads have been around for nearly four years already.


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I find cats react badly to salt, being burned by it, due to the fact they have no scales.

Having said that, i belleve some people use it, dosed at much lower quantities, and well dissolved in hot water beforehand.

I would, if i went that routee, use rock salt, not aquarium salt because of all the minerals it contains, catfish do not need, and certainly never kitchen salt, that gross kitchen salt, because it contains iodine.
 
I believe I covered this in one of my sticky threads in disease forum. Those sticky threads have been around for nearly four years already.


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I saw that but my concern is conflicting information. Some people say it's ok, some people say no way. I just wanted to know if it's sub species specific or if there is just one answer


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Joe Jaskot's article ( thank you Joe ) solves nothing, stating merely the obvious. Of course there are brackish and marine cats.
Of course plecos are better armoured and ome even live in brackish environmnents.

To mix moray eels in the theme is utterly ridiciculous.


Our usuals cats come from soft water rivers and lakes, with small mineral content and have a sensitive skin, and said skin burns with salt.

Now i know there are also hard water cats, such as in the african lakes. Mostly they, save for synodontis, are rarely seen in the hobby, i believe.

So yes, i stick my my opinion that your tupical south american and asian cat does not thank you for adding salt to the water.

Not saying they will die, but extra caution in dosage and application should be used.

There are guys in here who sleep on top of cats, who dream cats ( NECROCRANIS where are you, for instance:) ? )

Chime in!
 
I never read from an official source, like a magazine or a data/care sheet or an earnest web-article such as the one from ScotCat linked above, that catfish do not tolerate salt. Some keepers do indeed say salt hurt their cats but IME for every such keeper, there are 10 or more that say the opposite. So, statistics is not in their favor either.

All my cats of ~100 different kinds have never shown any worse of a salt effect as any other fish, namely, if added step-by-step, slowly and carefully, perhaps aiming at half-dose first and going even slower and with more observation from there.

On the other hand, generalizing is one thing, but knowing details is another. Say, just because perhaps 90% of cats are ok with salt, 10% may not be as ok, especially some of those coming from very low-TDS water.
 
You must surely agree that that Scottcat article says nothing absolutely...

On the rest you are perfectly right. We all know very little, but our experience and the little we think about it.

I have dosed cats with salt, because they were in tanks i wanted to dose with salt.

Have never killed a cat with salt. Stick, howver, to my belief ( empirical opinion at worst ) that yourtypical cat does not thank us for salt.
 
And this is exactly the reason i started this thread. At this point, there seems to not be one right or wrong answer. I'm hoping to find that answer or at least a happy medium.


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I think this issue i based on personal perception of how their fish reacts to adding salt but I will say this if you add salt to a wound it is going to burn but that means it is healing I personally have had no ill effects using salt with my cats just be carefully not to overdose and I would not suggest using pimafix or melafix as it could disturb the bio balance in the tank and create a spike in nitrite nitrate or amonia


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